TORONTO – The savvy of knowing what to say no matter the situation has served Derek Jeter very well over nearly two decades with the New York Yankees, allowing him to sidestep controversy in a city that breeds it, and consistently strike the right tone regardless of the conversation.
Friday night, during the session he conducts with local media preceding his final visit to each city on his farewell tour, The Captain was once again on point. He loves the city of Toronto. He appreciates the fans eager to bid him adieu ahead of his looming retirement. He’s humbled by compliments from his peers.
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And this gem on what playing the Blue Jays has been like over the years: “They’ve had a lot of great teams that have been right there and sometimes due to injury or other circumstances, maybe towards the end of the year they haven’t really been there, but this team has played us tough. The last time we were here six weeks ago everyone was saying how great the Blue Jays were. It’s the same team, baseball is a game of ups and downs, and I’m sure they have a lot of confidence over there, and they’ll be fine.”
Well, not so much on all fronts there save for the injury stuff, but Jeter’s never been one to gloat about his success, or kick dirt in an opponent’s face. Consider that since 1996, the shortstop’s first full year in the majors, the Yankees have only twice dropped a season series to the Blue Jays, and are 184-129 over that span, including 8-5 this year, after Friday’s 6-3 victory.
Add in that the Blue Jays haven’t finished ahead of the Yankees even once during that time, and you get a pretty loose interpretation of the word “tough.”
Tough is better used to describe the fortunes of Mark Buehrle, as despite a performance that was far, far better than his pitching line of four runs over six innings would suggest, he lost his 11th consecutive decision to the Yankees.
This one fell apart for the veteran lefty in the seventh, as nursing a 1-0 lead thanks to Jose Bautista’s fourth-inning home run, everything unravelled after Brian McCann’s leadoff double. After Carlos Beltran walked, Brett Gardner ripped a double to tie the game and Steve Tolleson’s awful relay to third on the play skipped away allowing Beltran to trot home with the go-ahead run.
After an Ichiro Suzuki infield single, Buehrle’s night was over, and once Aaron Loup took over, Dioner Navarro’s pointless pickoff attempt on Gardner at third sailed to Melky Cabrera in left field making it a 3-1 game. After pinch-hitter Chase Headley struck out, Jacoby Ellsbury became the first left-handed hitter in the majors to take Loup deep, a span of 233 at-bats, for a two-run shot that made it 5-1.
“It could be a sign of getting old and a lot of innings, I get to the fifth, sixth inning and start to putter out a little bit, I don’t know,” said Buehrle. “I felt strong even going out there for the seventh inning, I felt as strong as I did in the first and it’s just the results aren’t there. I’m missing location, which that obviously is a sign of getting a little tired.
“The way I’m feeling now, I’m happy about it, I just need to get the results.”
The Blue Jays, silent with the bats after Bautista hit a homer for the third straight game, responded with a pair in the bottom of the seventh on Kevin Pillar’s RBI double and Melky Cabrera’s sacrifice fly, but the Yankees held from there for their seventh win in nine outings.
Offence continues to be the key issue for the Blue Jays, who have scored three runs or less in 14 of their 24 games so far in August, going 7-17 in those contests.
“We’ve just got to swing our way out of it,” said manager John Gibbons. “We’re better hitters than what we’re producing as a whole right now, there’s no question about that. Just keep battling every day, I don’t have another answer for you, nobody does. Just keep grinding away, really what else are you going to do?”
These games matter for the Yankees (70-63), of course, who are in realistic contention for the second wild card, something the Blue Jays (67-67) were in sole possession of at the beginning of August before falling through a trap door.
They’ve won consecutive games just once this month, and are 4-8 since both Edwin Encarnacion and Adam Lind returned to the lineup with injuries.
“Once we got Lind and Edwin back I feel like it was, ‘All right, here we go, we got our big guns back and we’ll start playing better,’” said Buehrle. “But just all around, I’m not blaming the offence, we haven’t pitched very good, either, that’s the frustrating part. We were missing a lot of guys there for a couple of months, keeping our heads above ground, and then we got these guys back and it seems like we just can’t take off. I can’t pinpoint what it is.”
While not the same player he was, Jeter remains a solid contributor for the Yankees, collecting a single in three at-bats versus Buehrle, who he’s now 17-for-49 against in his career.
Asked about Buehrle’s woes against the Yankees, Jeter again was full of praise, saying, “This is a game where it doesn’t really make a difference what you’ve been doing, it’s day to day, a failure game. Mark’s had a lot of success throughout his career and he’s a challenge, I don’t care what he’s done in the past, he’ll be ready for us.”
Buehrle was, but the Yankees, as they so often have been, were better. Chase Headley, one of their many acquisitions before the trade deadline passed, hit a solo shot in the ninth on Dustin McGowan’s first pitch to provide some additional breathing space, and David Robertson closed things out in the ninth after snuffing out a tiny uprising in the eighth.
Same old, same old, and while Jeter generously said the Blue Jays have “given us fits throughout the years, especially here,” Friday night once again showed how much the opposite holds true.